


we were always meant to say goodbye

by attonitos_gloria



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (always), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Break Up, Domestic Violence, F/M, Marriage of Convenience, Minor Joffrey Baratheon/Margaery Tyrell, No Happy Ending Fest, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Past Joffrey Baratheon/Sansa Stark, Xenophobia, sansa and tyrion and their sad sad marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29945937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attonitos_gloria/pseuds/attonitos_gloria
Summary: The night after you say to him you’re leaving, you dance around each other as you always had in his haunted, empty and too cramped, too big and yet not big enough house that you can never quite forget that does not belong to you. You walk out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, hair still damp, just as he’s leaving his bedroom: it is instinct that makes him raise his eyes to acknowledge you, you know. He’s embarrassed to do it but he can’t avoid it, because the house is not big enough, despite having needless four living rooms and two kitchens, despite the large hallway that could easily accommodate four adult people shoulder by shoulder.He bows down his head, passes you by. You think that, given enough time, eventually you both would have learned to ignore each other more efficiently.[Sansa leaves.]
Relationships: Tyrion Lannister/Sansa Stark
Comments: 22
Kudos: 31





	we were always meant to say goodbye

  
  
  
You postpone it as long as you can, but today, you’re dining together, and you feel the deadline is a guest sitting at the long table, because Petyr messaged you this morning, _it’s done, meet me next Friday, 5 p.m., same place_ ; and sharing a meal with your husband is a rare occasion. Tyrion always leaves before you’re awake, and sometimes comes back home after you’ve already eaten, but tonight you’re both silently sharing overcooked peas and mutton and you put your fork and knife down, take the linen napkin laid on your lap, clean the corner of your mouth and say, “I’m leaving.”

It echoes across the dining room, as most sounds in a house so big and so empty. Tyrion raises his eyes from his food, staring at you for a long moment. He knows exactly what you mean, and he’s not at all surprised.

+++

He’s not surprised because it was obvious from the very beginning, and it begins in a hospital. You remember him before you remember every other Lannister in the room: Jaime in the shadowy corner, Cersei, pretty in her green suit and make up on, Joffrey standing beside the rock that was Tywin Lannister, you only saw after. But when you opened your eyes, you first saw him, this man that everyone calls _little,_ pushing Joff’s chest and furious beyond reason or patience, “you little piece of shit, I’m going to―”

You remember Jaime ― it must have been him who called Tyrion, you had thought ― grabbing his shoulders, standing between his little brother and nephew, “calm down, Tyrion,” keeping him from doing to Joff what Joff had done to you, stopping him from simply knocking Joff’s blonde, hideous head against the wall. “The girl is awake,” Tywin had said, then. He never raised his voice and yet everybody always listened.

There was a needle infusing something into your veins and you assumed that must have been the reason why you were dizzy and painless, why your tongue was heavy and you couldn’t talk. Or maybe you just didn’t want to talk at all. You had nothing to say to any of them.

But Tyrion did; he always had something to say. He had looked at you, the same way he’d looked at you the first time he saw the bruises, and you forced yourself to keep his gaze, hard. He knew too much, and despite your shame, you refused to be the first to look away. Then, he said, to no one in particular, “she’s going home with me.”

Cersei had snorted a mocking laughter through her nose, threw her arms dramatically in the air: “that is completely unnecessary, you’re overreacting again, the girl is fine―”

And Joffrey glared at his uncle and said, louder, over his mother, “she’s _my_ fiancé, you’re not going to leave this hospital with―”

But Tyrion pinched the bridge of his nose, raised a hand and said, voice vicious and lethal, “I think you mistake me, Joffrey. I am not asking, I am announcing. She’s going home with me or I swear to God, not even Jaime will stop me from breaking _your_ head. Do not test me.”

So the room went quiet, and Tywin went somber, and since silence among the Lannisters was the only available form of consent, you left the hospital almost one year ago and went home with Tyrion Lannister.

+++

The night after you say to him you’re leaving, you dance around each other as you always had in his haunted, empty and too cramped, too big and yet not big enough house that you can never quite forget that does not belong to you. You walk out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, hair still damp, just as he’s leaving his bedroom: it is instinct that makes him raise his eyes to acknowledge you, you know. He’s embarrassed to do it but he can’t avoid it, because the house is not big enough, despite having needless four living rooms and two kitchens, despite the large hallway that could easily accommodate four adult people shoulder by shoulder.

He bows down his head, passes you by. You think that, given enough time, eventually you both would have learned to ignore each other more efficiently.

You go to the Kitchen to grab some water and he’s pouring himself a Chilean Red, and you remember the day you both went to the City Hall to sign the papers. “Constanza? Really?” He’d asked, eyes on the street and not on you, and you refused to muse on the fact that your legal husband didn’t know your true birth-name until the moment of the wedding; that of the extensive-but-not-exhaustive list of questions you both ran through together, you skipped this rather fundamental one; instead, you had sunk your hands, covered in white-leather gloves, into the pockets of your white overcoat and smiled to the winter sun. “Never call me like that,” you’d commanded, “I hate it, it’s like you’re fighting me.” He’d smiled too, almost imperceptible but it was there, “just Sansa, then. It’s a pretty name.”

(Later that night, you had said: _it means steadfast, my name._ Constant, loyal and unchanging.)

The gloves were yours but the coat was a gift from him. It was actually pretty, and he’d said, carelessly holding the bag out to you, “it’s not a wedding dress, but it’s white.” And you had smiled, despite his trying to pretend it didn’t matter. He also got your size right, which had impressed you.

Now, as he pours himself wine from your homeland, all of it ― each insignificant part of it ― feels silly and there’s an ache settling beneath your ribs that you’d like to drink away.

But you don't. You drink your water, come back to your rooms.

+++

Maybe it is unfair to say it begins in a hospital. Maybe it begins before that, in that first summer where your whole life turned upside down: you were in Marg’s beach house, with the other girls from the agency, and Joff, of course. Tyrion was there, too, and also Olenna, Tywin, Cersei, though they were never seen outside the house, indeed outside of the upper floor of the mansion. The sun felt closer to the earth, like a friend, like home. Everyone wore bikinis but you kept your oversized pink linen shirt carefully tucked in your high-waisted shorts, the two first buttons off, just because it was summer. You were wearing sunglasses that day, heart-shaped, pink and silly, and you were drinking, too, trying to _feel_ silly. Margaery lingered on the edge of the pool and she could be a mermaid. She was so pretty that you didn’t care that she kept leaning against Joff all the time, bracing on his shoulder and laughing at his humorless jokes. You drank more ― it was beer, Joff adored beer but you hated it ― and you laughed at his jokes too.

But that’s what is going to truly stick with you about that day: you were leaving the bathroom, looking at yourself before the giant marble mirror that covered the whole wall in the exit, trying to comb your hair in a ponytail again to come back to your colleagues, and you saw Tyrion’s face in the mirror. He was standing behind you, staring at your back, alarmed.

Before he could see you had caught him, you turned around, noticed you hadn’t packed your shirt and the hem had raised when you lifted your arms to do your hair. The bruise was still ugly that day, purple-dark. You let your hair fall free.

“Sansa,” he’d said, somberly.

“It’s all right,” you replied to his wordless question, soothingly.

“It is not.” His tone was final, decisive, and his eyes found yours.

(Even when you’re on the throes of leaving: sometimes, not often, but sometimes, you let yourself forget he is a Lannister, feeding from money made out of the misery of your country like a vulture.)

“I fell,” you had said with a shy smile. “I’m so clumsy―”

“You walk around like a fucking ballerina,” he retorted, grumpy. Yes, you knew. You were gracious, and pretty, you walked on air. In the magazines you were always wearing something cotton-candy colored, arms laced with Joffrey’s on Sunday afternoons at the park. You were not like _the other girls_ in the agency, who wore short skirts and were photographed leaving nightclubs in the morning with smeared red lipstick. You were a _good girl_. Tyrion had said it, once, in one of those insufferable family dinners, a smirk behind his drink, _you’re a good girl, aren’t you, Sansa,_ and you had known, then, that he knew about Joffrey. On the day in the hallway, at the door of the bathroom of Margaery’s summer house, he took a step closer to you, and then another: “let me see it.”

You had thought of saying there was no need. But the hallway was empty. You both could hear the laughter and Marg’s cousin drunkenly singing far away, like you were encapsulated in an exception of space and time, bubbled in, everyone else out. And no one but you had touched that bruise. The night prior, you had panicked thinking someone would see it; you had pressed ice cubes directly against your skin. It burned you.

Tyrion came closer, as close as he ever would, really, and tugged at your shirt until the hem was free, raised it enough to see the soft curve of your waist, above your left hip. The bruise goes on, down, actually, so he also brought the waistband of your shorts a little lower to assess the damage. He touched you, and it also burned, in a way. “Ballerinas fall too,” you had tried to joke.

You felt his thumb ghosting over the bruise. The joke didn’t work with him. “I know my nephew,” he said. “I know him.”

You took a step away from him, and tucked the backside of your shirt back into your shorts to hide your skin again. He was dressed for business. Dress white slim shirt, black tie, Italian shoes, perfectly made beard, French perfume and a 18k Rolex around his wrist (golden). You were all pretending at summer, playing like oblivious children, you know, while the grown-ups made business upstairs about your lives. “So do I,” you had answered, coldly.

“I’ve been worried about you in a while,” he said, baritone-voice, low. You thought, then, that he had a solid presence: he had this effect on people, on you. It made you uncomfortable, as if you couldn’t possibly hide from him in that gigantic house.

“Why?” You asked, pettily crossed your arms beneath your bosom. “I am perfectly well.”

“You’re with Joffrey, to begin with, that’s enough reason,” he muttered. You fought against the tenderness you felt for him, then: it was not appropriate. “Every time I see you, you look thinner―”

“It’s the job,” you shrugged. “I’m supposed to be thin.”

“Cersei is starving you. That’s not part of the job,” he said, as if he could possibly know anything about being a model. He ran a hand through his hair. “And now this―”

“This,” you had sentenced, “is nothing,” because if you said it enough times it would be― not true, just easier to handle.

He’d licked his lower lip, took a breath, “Sansa, if you want―”

He kept calling you by your name. You hated it. “Mr Lannister,” you said with a knife-voice, “I am fine.”

You crossed your arms again, stared down at him.

He sighed his defeat, took a business card from his breast pocket and handed it to you. “If you need me,” he said, staring into your eyes as if he weren’t pleading, “don’t hesitate to call me.”

He’d always been around, Tyrion; always kept an eye on you at parties and family dinners, always stared at Joff’s hand around your waist, always shared a quiet look with you over Joff’s rude jokes, as if he was always expecting you to burst out of the room, but that was the first time he _did_ something other than _stare_ at you in a way that let you know that he knew.

You never call.

+++

(Your English was _flawless_. You practiced it to perfection, diligently, more than all of your siblings, dreaming of the day you’d finally leave all of that behind ― the _smallness_ of it all ― and come to the land of big dreams and big buildings and you would have a big life. Your teacher had said, once, that you barely had an accent and you felt so proud.

And then you arrived in that big city, your big future spread endlessly in front of you, and Cersei had smiled at you like daggers, combed vicious fingers through your smooth, auburn hair, “oh, don’t worry, sweetling, you’ll do good, you don’t look Latin at all,” and you were surprised to feel your smile faltering.

And Tyrion, he just―

He doesn’t _know_. He has no idea. And you can’t quite love someone who doesn’t know homesickness.)

+++

Since you told him, he keeps coming home more tired with each passing night, you think; three days before you leave, you find him alone in the balcony, staring at the city beneath you like it’s a carpet, something to step on; his house makes justice to the word _uptown_ , standing on a raised hill like he was the guardian of it all, or maybe like he wanted to make it difficult to get to him. You never figured it out and perhaps it is both. There’s a pile of papers forgotten on his lap, he’s biting the tip of his pen. You take the free seat next to him on the couch and murmur the question that frightens you the most, more than simply saying to him you’ll leave: “do you want a divorce?”

His teeth let go of the pen. He looks at you, “I thought _you_ needed this.” For a man who’s about to be abandoned by his wife, it is said rather kindly.

“I can work it out,” you say, trying to sound firm and under control. He scrutinizes you and it prompts you to just say it, “if you find someone, wouldn’t be better to just have the divorce papers signed?”

(What you mean is, _I’m not coming back._

What you mean is, _where I’m going, you can’t follow._ )

But he just shifts his shoulders, as if they’re tense. “I’m not going to find anyone.”

“Tyrion―” you begin to say, and he stares at you: “Sansa.” You recoil, you’d like to say something, but the silence fills the city, the balcony, the eight months you’ve been married, and so he only says, “let’s keep things as they are.”

“If you find someone―” you try, you have to, one last time.

“I’ll tell them I’m already married,” he shrugs it off.

You nod to him. You don’t say ‘thank you.’ You think he wouldn’t like it.

He doesn’t ask where you’re going, and for that you’d really like to say thank you; for that, you almost love him.

+++

When you came back from the hospital after Joff banged your head against the wall until you were unconscious, Tyrion let you rest. He slept on the couch and gave you his king-sized bed, let a pack of aspirin and a glass of water by the nightstand. You woke up in the middle of the night. He was already awake. He lifted his gaze to you when the door cracked open, and you leaned against the door-frame, and you both stared at each other for a very, very long moment.

“That eye will need ice,” he said, and got up.

You couldn’t argue. You avoided mirrors but you could feel it swollen and tender, so you took a chair, sat down, and when he came back from the kitchen with a small package of ice cubes wrapped in a clean towel, you pressed it against your right eye and let your head lull back just from the exhaustion of it all.

“I’ll leave you alone in the morning,” you promised. “I’m sorry for your trouble.”

He narrowed his eyes, “and where, exactly, do you plan to go?”

You remember you didn’t like his tone. Condescending, as if you were a child.

“To Joff’s house,” you said, because Tyrion already knew, and because that’s exactly what he wanted to hear. He was no different from the men who thought you as shallow and stupid as every other girl working for his sister, looking for fame and money and trying to date a Prince or an actor or whatever. So you did your part: “I’ll apologize. When I apologize first he always apologizes too and this― this can be fixed.” Some things couldn’t, you knew.

You heard his bitter laughter, “this is insane.” And, as if you hadn’t been there, “he gave you a traumatic brain injury, Jesus Christ, Sansa―”

“I need the job,” you retorted, impatient, put the ice down on your knee, barely registered the cold wetting your jeans, “his mother is my boss. Do you honestly think your sister will simply accept me back into the agency if I break up with him? Do you know her at all? ”

“Then get another job,” he pleaded and you, you, you just couldn’t deal with the amount of rage you felt in that second.

“I can’t,” you said, your voice raising against your better judgment―

“Why not?” Tyrion asked, and he was starting to build another argument―

so before he could say another word, you just said the truth, “I don’t have a green card.”

And perhaps this is where it all started, silence’s annoying habit of occupying every available space when you’re together in the same room: it starts that night, Tyrion looking at you completely dumbfounded at first, and then confused, and then understanding all at once, but still, he asked, “but my father―”

“Your father,” you managed to say through your clenched teeth, “promised me a green card when he first hired me, and then he said he would provide one after I had done enough work, and then said that after I married Joff I wouldn’t need his help anyway,” you refused to look away from him again, “and I need to send money home every month, I need to,” you explained, you didn’t have to, but you wanted him to feel guilty for it. It was his family and his empire of blood and his name, you wanted him to hurt, you were hurting so much. “I have three younger siblings scattered in different places on the globe. My parents are dead, and my older brother is dead, all in the wake of the conflict that your father lobbied for in my country. So I can’t lose the job. Do you understand? I’ll call Joff, and this will be fixed. It has to.”

He’d released a deep, long breath, sat down across you. You pressed the ice cubes over your bruised eye again.

“Marry me, then,” he said.

You were the face of his father’s enterprise, you know that. Cersei Lannister’s protégé, they called you in social columns and tabloids, but younger and more beautiful than the daughter of Tywin Lannister ever had been. Everyone conveniently forgot to mention that these companies were just curtains of smoke around the true nature of his business, but there you were, you were the face of the empire of the man who had hands soaked in the blood of your people. You worked for him, you were his doll on every magazine and every paper and every outdoor, you earned the money and you sent it home. Because you _had to._ You were a Stark. You always knew your duties.

“What did you say?” You had asked, you thought you heard him―

You looked at his face, then. He was serious, and quiet, and somewhat defeated. “I said,” he spoke again, voice clear, unmistakable, “marry me.”

+++

(You shouldn’t feel guilty for wanting _more,_ for wanting something _else_ , for _not_ wanting broken mercy and a parched house. You shouldn’t feel guilty for trying to run away from a home that was built in the wake of your blood on the floor of Joff’s place and your unconscious body and that still, somehow, smells of hospital sanitizers and tastes of aspirin. It’s no foundation for a house, anyway; you deserve better; he deserves better. You shouldn’t feel guilty, and you _won’t._ )

+++

On Friday, 5 p.m., you’re waiting for Petyr at the same place. Outside, the autumn rain is relentless, stubborn, and the neon lights are flickering. It is a small, decadent cafeteria, very different from the one you work in ― or _worked_ ; you told your boss you were quitting that morning. You’re drinking bad coffee and peeking once in a while at the owner, a man in his fifties cleaning the counter, wondering why exactly Petyr Baelish chose this place and trust these people, if he trusts anyone at all. The cafeteria is empty when Petyr arrives, precisely at 5:04 p.m., in a perfect navy suit and an actual golden tie pin. He seems to float in this place, and you feel something like hysteria in seeing this man sitting on a plastic chair across you.

This is going to be very quick, you know. Without a word, Petyr slides a yellow envelope toward you on the table, and you open it just enough to see your new belongings. A passport, a social security card, a debit card, a train ticket, round brown glasses, a single key. The name in each one of them is _Alayne Stone_ and the photo looks enough like you, except for―

“My hair is not black,” you say, but what you’re thinking about is Tyrion’s fingers in your scalp putting you to sleep as you laid your head on his lap, the background noise of a french movie on TV, windows open: _it’s like it is always autumn in your head_. He was not the first person to come up with the remark but it was the first time you felt like someone understood that a part of you was always falling and dying but not dead, just in the limbo, waiting on resurrection. You heard something of the sorts, at church, when you were a girl, and you took it to your heart. But Tyrion never goes to church, and you never spoke much of home with him beside the strictly necessary for him to know in the interview of your green card, so you had closed your eyes and hummed appreciation under your breath, drowsy and bone-tired on his couch that is bigger than your bed back at home. You wondered if Arya was sleeping in a bed that night. And then you thought of something else, focused on the gentle knead of his fingers instead. You had tried and tried and tried not to indulge in him. You never quite understood if it was cruel of you to allow him these rare, fleeting moments, or if it was a kindness. You had, after all, nothing else to give him.

Petyr lights up a cigarette, and takes a deep, slow, deliberate drag. “I’ve noticed,” he breathes out, smirking, the smoke swirling over his face. Petyr was no savior, you knew, not because he was particularly bad, but just because there was no such thing as saviors in this country. “Dye it. And cut it, too. You’ve gained weight. Out of your fancy clothing, with no make up and your hair black, nobody will be _searching_ ,” and, as he’d said once, people don’t find things they were not looking for. “You asked me to disappear, Sansa. This is the only way.”

You asked him to disappear, it is true. But the hows and the plans were all his idea. Of course, you said: _this is not going to work,_ though you wanted it to work so badly it pained you. _Everyone knows my face. I can’t simply disappear out of thin air._ And Petyr smirked at you, leaned over, _you’d be surprised, Sansa,_ he murmured, _to know how much we can hide in plain sight, under the daylight._

“Who’s Alayne?” You ask, shuffling the documents all over again. He stills your hand. Outside, the neon lights in front of the cafeteria still too, but the rain goes on, and the colorful glow over the street looks sinister, sad.

“Someone I knew.” He takes another drag, looks at you calculatedly, and points to the ticket among the documents. “Do not miss this train. Needless to say, you have to go alone.”

You look at the ticket: the platform, the hour, your seat. Sunday, 11:18 p.m. “Not even my husband?” You ask, and immediately feel silly, childish. Petyr’s response tells you as much.

“ _Particularly_ not your husband, Sansa,” he says, like a sweet reprimand from a father to his disobedient daughter. You stare at his pale green eyes behind the smoke. “You’re not going to regret this, sweetling.”

You nod, put it all back into the envelope. “I know I won’t,” you answer dryly.

+++

One week after the hospital incident, Tyrion came home with a relatively thick pile of papers, handed it to you, “those are the questions they’ll likely ask us.” You ran your eyes over the list of questions, felt a coldness settling in your belly. Looked up, at him, who seemed wary as he continued, “it’s not an exhaustive list.”

You swallowed down, and thought it was just not worth it, to sell your life away like this to a man who was no more than a stranger.

“It’s a long list,” you commented, quietly, as you turned the page. There were personal things, secrets, facts about you that you’ve never told anyone since you first put your feet on this country, the land of the free and home of the brave.

“Yes,” he agreed. For his credit, he also seemed very uncomfortable and that was, after all, for you, and not for him. He sat next to you, “so we better get started.”

+++

You come back home Friday soaking wet, with a bag in hand, two boxes of black hair dye, and crying. The rain could disguise your tears, you think, but you’re a ginger; you can’t hide when you cry, can’t cover up your red eyes and cheeks; you know you look like a mess. Tyrion looks at you, at your state, this woman in damp clothes crying over the kitchen counter and says, only, “Sansa.” He doesn’t ask where you’ve been, why you’re late, who you’ve been with; he feels too guilty to make these sorts of questions. He knows you’re leaving, and he knows he won’t follow. The rest is not of his concern.

“I need your help to dye my hair,” you say, simply. “And cut it, too.”

He looks troubled, but he only nods. “Okay,” he says. “But first, let’s get rid of these clothes. You’ll catch your death.”

In the bathroom, you strip yourself from your damp clothes. He takes them to the wash-machine while you set up your tools before you can begin, starting to dry your hair. You sit down on a bench, only in your bra and panties when he comes back, and both of you put the gloves on to work: it is a long process, and neither of you talk while you paint each strand, root to tip.

You’ve never been close to him. You’ve never shared a bed, and you are polite and comfortable around each other, but apart from the day he touched the bruise below your ribcage, that summer that feels like a lifetime ago in Marg’s summer house, he didn’t really make a habit out of touching you. You’ve always felt grateful for that; thinking about it, you think he actively _avoids_ it, as much as he can, as if he, too, could bruise you. There are exceptions, of course, but they are few, and you can count them in the fingers of one hand. So it feels heavy, now, to discover, while he brushes black dye in your hair like a painter, like you’re a work of art, that he has truly delicate hands.

That’s a little late. You don’t know if it would’ve changed anything, but you wish you had known it sooner.

+++

But of all of it, every painful month until you finally left, there’s a memory you’ll cherish the most:

Last summer, a wedding invitation arrived at his house. It had perfume in it, and in handwriting font, the names of Robert Baratheon ( _in memoriam_ ) and Cersei Lannister on the upper right, and Mace Tyrell and Alerie Hightower ( _in memoriam_ ) on the upper left, and Joffrey and Margaery’s name intertwined into each other as if they were meant to be, and thorny golden flowers all over. The ceremony is to take place in twenty days.

Tyrion looked at you as you fidgeted with the golden ribbon around the classic envelope and said, “we don’t have to go.”

You pulled a face at him, “yes, we do.”

“We don’t,” he stubbornly insisted.

“People will talk more if we don’t go,” you had argued. They already did, all the months since you married him, no ceremony and no party, just bureaucratic papers on the City Hall and a small note on the social column the day after. All the advertising with your face started to disappear, one week at a time, until you vanished, until there was no more photos of you and Joffrey on the tabloids, and until, eventually, there were photos of Joff and Marg, sided with photos of you and Marg at the left, and you and Joff at the right, a true scandal. No magazine ever reported your stay in the hospital. And the weeks passed by, and the months, and you were forgotten, left to the shadows with this man who already lived in shadows.

You kept hiding in Tyrion’s apartment, got a job downtown in a small cafe where sometimes people recognized you, but most of the time didn’t, and the money was not enough to pay the bills or send money home to your family but it didn’t matter because Tyrion did both without you ever asking; you _hate_ how much you depend on him, how much you feel like you owe him something, how much he looks at you as if he’s expecting something you can’t _name_. But at the end of the day, he’s not a bad man. He’s easy to share a life and a house with. He’s messy, but clean ― you’re always gathering his shoes and tie and shirt on his wake, left hanging on the back of the chair or by the side of the couch or the door handle in the bathroom ― and he always leaves you alone. He brings lemon cakes home to you, despite you working in a cafe, because _you’re too damn thin, you look sick, please eat something_. You gained weight again, your clothes suddenly didn’t fit, and Tyrion gave you his credit card, _go, buy yourself something, have fun with your friends_. But you never had any true friends here.

He looked at the invitation in your hand and gave a sigh of something you were beginning to recognize as defeat, which always left him frustrated, even in small daily things. Perhaps all lobbyists are like that, you thought, they just can’t lose. Or perhaps all the Lannisters are. Since all the Lannisters you knew were lobbyists, there was no way to tell the difference. “And your father won’t be pleased if we miss it,” you added. Tywin was already overall displeased with your existences and he was not a man to be challenged.

Tyrion didn’t seem to like it. If not anything else, this has always been a point of convergence between you and him, how viscerally you both despised Joffrey. “We’ll just make an appearance,” you said to him, “we’re going to eat something fancy, and then leave.”

Despite everything, he huffed a laughter: “it is good to see you excited about food.” And you laughed too.

So you both were there, twenty days later: in formal attire and hand in hand, trying to go unnoticed amidst the crowd ― it was a big event, the media was covering the ceremony, there were twelve different kinds of appetizers being served in the garden in front of the church. A lot of people came to give you a hug, all smiles, asking “where you’ve been, stranger?” as you found your way around it, and you did the small talk while Tyrion brooded by your side. When Marg walked down the aisle at the sound of the wedding march you didn’t have tears in your eyes like every other girl, but nobody was paying attention. She looked like a princess ― her veil seemed to go on for miles behind her, stuck to her hair in a literal _crown_ ― and truth be told, Joff looked like a prince, too. Tyrion held your hand through the ceremony. He only let go so you both could clap with the crowd when the priest said his blessing and the groom and bride kissed and rose petals started to fall from the ceiling. You got up and threw rice on the newly weds as they made their way out on the aisle, like everyone else. And as the guests left the church to leave for the reception, you stayed behind. You stared at your husband, took a red petal out of his hair. “She is a beautiful bride,” you said. Margaery was a beautiful everything.

“Not more than you,” he’d replied. It was not said romantically, you never were with each other, just really honest, which was somehow better and funnier; you rolled your eyes, because on your wedding day you just wore winter, white coat and white gloves. You didn’t kiss your husband’s lips but the snow kissed yours when both of you left the building.

You watched Marg’s back as she received the love of her friends and family and thought, _I’ll never be a bride._ Not like that, not again.

You had suddenly stared at Tyrion, then, and said, out of nowhere, “can we leave? Now?”

He had never looked so relieved as in that moment, “oh my God, yes. Thank you.”

So you both headed back to the car; you took your high-heels off and sunk into the passenger seat, closed your eyes; Tyrion hanged his perfectly tailored black suit on the back of his seat, loosened the tie around his throat, undid the first button of his shirt, and he looked at you. Longly, in that way he sometimes did. “Ask me for anything,” he said.

You had frowned, chuckled under your breath, confused, “what do you mean?”

He bit down his lower lip, smirking, studied you in the safety of the car for a moment, his hand frozen on the car key, already in the ignition. “You’re officially free of Joffrey Baratheon,” he explained. “I think a celebration is in order.”

You had smiled, hadn’t been able to fight it back, hadn't wanted to because, well, you agreed. “I’m legally free since I married you,” you replied, softly, despite still being afraid of finding Joffrey randomly on the streets, despite the fact that you never left Tyrion’s shadow in the mandatory family dinners once a month because Joff was too afraid of him to try anything, despite the fact that you felt like you would never be truly free from Joffrey, or the Lannisters, not really.

“Now you’re double free,” he offered back. You laughed again. “Seriously. Anything. We can buy a ticket to Paris, we can go shopping and buy you a dozen new dresses, we can travel to the coast-side right now, we can do anything. Just tell me and I’ll give it to you.”

You tapped a finger against your chin, thought it through. Outside, it was an astonishingly bright summer day. “You know what I’m craving?” you had said, “mint chocolate chip ice cream.”

It was his turn to laugh. “I offer you Paris and you want ice cream?”

“Your sister never let me eat dessert,” you retorted, but you were smiling, too. And going to Paris out of nowhere was an absurd idea, anyway; you never understood those delusions of greatness that ran in his family.

He raised his eyebrows, as if in concession. He looked beautiful when yielding. “Okay, then. Mint chocolate chip ice cream it is.”

So he took you for an ice cream ― you asked for the biggest size, and he laughed at you as you ate yours, as it spilled down your chin beneath the inflexible summer sun; he reached out to thumb it, in an unusually bold move, took his finger back to his mouth to taste it, you said _I told you, it is the best flavor of ice cream in the world_. He was perfectly clean and composed, like a respectable adult, as he ate his one, strawberry-pink; he was one of those methodical people who liked the ice cream level with the edge of the cone before the first bite. Later, when you were back home, you realized you didn’t think of Joff at all that day.

You’ll remember this, years ahead, in another land where nobody knows your true name; and you’ll smile.

+++

On Sunday, 10:45pm, you’re ready to leave.

Everything you need is in that envelope: your new name and new key and new life included. _No large bags, no luggage,_ Petyr had said, so you’re taking a couple of change of clothes, a toothbrush, and that’s it. Everything else you’ll find down the road, in the future that waits, in the new life spread ahead of you again. It is, you say to yourself, an act of hope that you’re still running, running, running toward it. It’s not a dream, but it is _something._

Tyrion watches you as you put the round glasses on, and then a hat, and then wraps a linen-scarf around your neck. “I gather it’s useless to ask for you to message me when you arrive,” he says, “wherever that is.”

You turn around, studying him standing against the wall, his arms crossed. He is the materialization of resignation ― the tilt of his head and the downward curve of his mouth and the wrinkle on his brow.

You take the three steps needed to end the distance and kneel before him. You’ve never done it before, but this is a goodbye and you suddenly want to be level with him, want to look him in the eye.

For a moment, both of you guard the silence, respecting it as the third party of this marriage, as a guest of honor.

You reach out to cover his cheek with the palm of your hand; it almost startles him. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for caring,” you say. You’re leaving and soon it won’t matter; you have to say it, can’t leave without saying it, that you know he cares and that it has, in a way, saved you.

But it’s not enough. There are no saviors in this country. You wish you could say more; that it’s good that you’re leaving, that it will free him, too, that it means you’re growing up and his house is, suddenly, not big enough for you both. You wish you could say he’ll forget about you in a second, as everybody else did. But you keep it all to yourself.

He covers your hand with his, and it feels roughed and warm. “You still can call me if you need anything,” he says. “I’ll be here.”

You know that. But you won’t call.

You make a pause; “your father―” you begin to say.

He shakes his head, shushing you. “Let me handle father.”

You nod, taking in a deep breath. Suddenly, madly, you realize that you trust him; that you’ve trusted him from the very beginning of it all. You trusted him when he touched your bruised rib cage. You trusted him as he helped you out of the hospital, still dizzy with medication, resting your cheek on his shoulder on the backseat of the taxi, on your way to his house. You trusted him as you unraveled your life for him so he could have the answers for the interview by heart. You trusted him as you stripped yourself to your underwear so he could see your transformation into someone else, even knowing he would never learn your new, fake name. Too late, you think, but. “Okay,” you say.

You lean in, your nose brushes against his, you close your eyes and breathe in and when you try to press your mouth against his, he holds your nape, keeps you still in your place, “are you trying to say thank you?”

You sigh, press your forehead against his instead, “no. I’ve just done that, I’m trying―”

“―to say goodbye,” he finishes.

You open your eyes. “Yes,” you answer. You don’t want to lie to him after all this time, not now.

He sighs, too, and presses his lips to your forehead. “Then don’t,” he murmurs. He is not a man who would like pity, gratitude, mercy, regret- none of it matters now. He would only accept unrestricted devotion because he is a Lannister and a Lannister is, by definition, someone who takes it all. But you don’t have your all to give to him. You have pieces and fragments and they’re only a part of you. Your everything belongs to you and you alone.

So it’s a silly hope, a high bet, this one that he’s wagering; the hope you’ll see each other again. But he’s a lobbyist, so maybe he only knows risks in the extremes. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, and hold him, tight, for a very long moment.

“For Christ's sake, be careful, Sansa,” he mutters against your new, black, cut hair.

“I will.” You get up on your feet again after a heartbeat. “Goodbye, Tyrion.”

And then you’re gone, leaving both your husband and Sansa Stark behind.

+++

(Perhaps, if you try hard enough, the true beginning is not in a hospital bed, neither in the shadow of an empty hallway as he lifted up your shirt to see how much you’ve been hurt.

No. All things considered, it begins like this:

Joffrey wanted you to meet his family, so he took you to a family party. He told you it would be a small affair, but you knew the rumours and his fame, so you did your hair, painted your nails, put on a golden necklace, wore a blue dress that brought out your eyes, and worked on your best smile. The family house was actually a mansion and it was crowded with much more than immediate relatives. You saw Tywin and Cersei right away, speaking in whispers, studying the guests; you knew that dinner would be more business than fun, as they usually were, so you shook a hundred hands as Joff said, countless times, as if you were his trophy, _this is my girlfriend, Sansa_ ; you drank small sips of your drinks; you got in and out of conversations seamlessly, effortlessly.

It was still not midnight yet when you escaped. You found a hallway that led to another hallway that led to a staircase that led to the rooftops of the house. You let the door fall closed behind you with a loud thud, your glass in hand, as you stared at the city below you.

It _was_ a pretty city, you couldn’t lie to yourself: the street lights like stars, more beautiful than the photos or the movies and more real, too. You breathed in, filling your lungs with that air, still unable to believe you were there. You were always afraid someone would uncover you, find out about you, but you were alone in a rooftop and the music was only background noise far away and you needed just a minute, and then―

Then the door opened behind you and your heart skipped a beat as you turned around, startled, fingers gripping your drink too tight, the glass sweating in your hand.

It was a man: that made a cold shock run from your fingertips all the way to your spine. But when you took a second glance, you recognized him. He was small, and had mismatched eyes, blond hair, a scar across his right cheek that made him look dangerous. The uncle. He was hard to mistake. You both stared at each other. “Oh,” he said. He had a very deep voice, very sultry. “I didn’t know it was occupied. I can leave.”

He didn’t really sound like he _wanted_ to leave. After all, he lived in that house. He knew the escape routes. Unlike you, he didn’t find the rooftop by chance. So, because you were a good girl, and because it was a big, wide rooftop, and despite the fact he was a man, and a Lannister, and a lobbyist, and likely drunk, and no one would hear you if you screamed, “it’s okay,” you said, politely.

You saw him studying you, head to toes. He walked toward the border of the rooftop until he was by your side. “It’s like you’re on the top of the world, isn’t it,” he murmured, almost to himself, and drank deep from his glass. It looked like whiskey. He had not only a glass, but a whole bottle in his other hand.

“Yes,” you agreed, wide-eyed, smiling. It was the first genuine smile of the night. You looked at him, “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. My name is―”

He waved his hand, interrupting your speech, and shook his head, gave a smirk: “don’t worry, girl. You don’t have to do this here.” He took another sip from his glass, “the rooftop is for rest, not for work.”

You had blushed. “But we _really_ haven’t been introduced,” you retorted.

He had looked you in the eye, then, for the first time.

“I’m Sansa Stark,” you said, and held out a hand.

He carefully put the bottle down and shook your hand. It was wet from the bottle, still. You didn’t mind. “I know who you are,” he said, gently. “I’m Tyrion, Sansa. It’s a pleasure.”

“Joffrey told me of you,” you had said, cautiously.

He laughed. It was a rich sound. In the future, you wouldn’t hear it so often. “Oh, I can only imagine,” he said, apparently having much fun with his musings. Joffrey clearly hated his uncle, which made you secretly, if slightly, sympathetic to him. “You’re his girlfriend, right? I didn’t know he liked—”

“— girls?” You tried with a small smirk, hiding it behind your glass, took another sip. There were many rumors about Joff: about his parents, his appetites, his bad habits.

“— _humans_ ,” Tyrion had finished, and you _laughed._ It was a sound that felt stolen from you. You didn’t mean to laugh and it revealed too much, so you covered your mouth with your palm. And the way he looked at you— you couldn’t help it, and dissolved into giggles again, even behind the shield of your hand.

When you spoke again, it was just damage control, really; it was already late. “He can be sweet,” you said, trying to sound diplomatic. For a lobbyist, he sounded rather sharp. Petyr had a smooth voice and made everyone trust him immediately; it was easy to picture him winning over almost anyone like that. But you tried to imagine how Joffrey’s uncle _worked_ , and you just couldn’t.

“No, he can’t,” Tyrion had said to you with a grave look. “In any case, Sansa, welcome to the family’s business.” He raised his glass, “you’re going to hate it.”

 _I know,_ you had thought, and then thought of Arya, of Bran, of little Rickon, and raised your glass too. You didn’t drink. The smile faded from your face. You nervously scanned around, looked back at the door, felt the grip of fear around your throat. He must have noticed, because next thing he said was “don’t worry, girl. I’m not going to hurt you.”

You stared at him, mouth open for a moment longer than it should, “I didn’t think you would.”

He looked in your eyes a second time. “You'll need to lie better, if you want to make it here,” he said, pointing vaguely toward the city under you both.

You scoffed. Petyr had said as much to you, once. “I’m practicing,” you shrugged.

A silence followed, and perhaps it was the alcohol hitting, but it took you a long time to notice he was studying you all the while. When you did, you kept his gaze. He had the _oddest_ pair of eyes.

“I think Joff must be missing me,” you had said, then, but didn’t move your feet.

“I’m sure he is,” Tyrion had replied, kindly, took his bottle and filled his glass again. “At least now you know a good hiding place. It is of _extreme_ necessity on these occasions.”

“Well, I randomly found it and stole it from you,” you replied, “so it’s not that _good_ , as far as hiding places go.”

He laughed again, and his eyes were warm as he looked at you almost in awe, as if he weren’t expecting you to be smart. Most people weren't, and you knew how to play the stupid little girl well enough by now. “That’s a good point, Sansa Stark,” he conceded, “but it was a pleasure to share.” He bowed down his head, then, just a little, like a _gentleman_.

You bit your lower lip. “Are you going back?”

He looked back at the city, and the wind played in his blonde, Lannister hair. It made him look something wild. “No. I’ll stay a little longer.”

“Okay.” You started to walk away. “I’ll see you around.” You probably would, you thought, him being the second to his father in business.

So he looked back at you and raised three fingers, as much as he could without letting go of his glass, in a shy farewell. “Goodbye, Sansa.”)

+++

**Author's Note:**

> this should be part of a greater project (with a slightly more optimistic ending), but since I'm in the ~getting rid of drafts~ moment of my life, here it goes: barely edited, raw as it was conceived, the core of the whole thing. the title is from "already gone" by kelly clarkson but I guess the vibes are more of "exile" by taylor swift. (both are great songs TY queens)


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